Ravelry

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

New Word for the Day: Jacquarded/Knitters for Knockers

I had to be in the city yesterday for a meeting, so I took the opportunity to visit River City Yarns downtown. My friend Penny had shown me some Misti Alpaca sock yarn that had me bewitched, and I wanted to go check out the other colours available. Her skein seemed to have every colour in the rainbow painted on it, and she chose it to match with other sock yarn remnants that she uses to make her Frankensocks. I LOVE her Frankensocks; they're multi-coloured, and the striping never matches which agrees with my non-conformist side. This yarn was similar to the Fabel I had used to make my turquoise socks, and I loved how that yarn jacquarded. (That's my new word for today...jacquarded: 1 (verb) past tense; created a jacquard pattern that looks like you mastered some highly intricate knitterly dance with several vivid strands of yarn, but really just plain knit with one strand.)

Anyway, the other colours of the yarn I speak of didn't thrill me so much when I saw them. There were soooo many other rich-coloured yarns that were grabbing my attention by the throat. So I had me a good long session of yarn-fondling. Somehow, during my fondling stroll, a skein of Trekking XXL (great jacquardability!) and a Mrs. Beeton's Wrist Warmer kit found their way into my hands, so they came home with me, along with the Fall issue of Interweave Knits magazine. My new purchases are sitting by my computer right now where I can gaze lovingly at their beauty off and on through my day.

I'm still working the heel of the Hibiscus. I had to frog the half-finished heel in order to sort myself out on short row stocking stitch heel construction. Now I'm back to half-way through the heel and I hope to get past the heel and back to working up the leg today. Isn't the pattern gorgeous! If you haven't already done so, please go to MezzoDiva's blog and donate to her worthy cause, Knitters for Knockers. I was honoured to guest author her blog last week while she prepares for her 60K walk in September to raise money for breast cancer research, so scroll down and check it out.

Mary's scarf has progressed also; I'm almost half-way through the middle part.

The shawl is still on the back burner for now. I've started adding the border. And I've done a few more rows on the back piece of the Juliaca sweater, just past the armhole bind offs. But that one is a loooooong term project. Miles and miles and miles of really boring road--I mean 2x2 ribbing!